A Hidden Fortress
by define-serenity
Summary: [Echo/Paul] He's always looking for her. She thinks she should know his name, only he's invisible, and she's infantile. But she does know that he calls her Caroline. ONESHOT. COMPLETE.


**author's notes:** first Dollhouse fanfic, let me know what you think. this is pre-s1.

**disclaimer:** Joss is boss, i'm just playing with the shinies.

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**A Hidden Fortress**

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It was assigned to him almost a year ago, the _Dollhouse_, the myth that creeps under tables and around corners with so much ease that it's almost ghostlike. A hidden fortress right there in their midst, funded by a higher class that kept on wanting more. More assets, more companionship, more perfection.

It's nothing more than just a job at first, an assignment, _his_ after disobeying again, after going off track by following his instinct and in the process pissing off some people upstairs. But he bites down pretty fast, hard and deep, and he refuses to let go. Not even when his wife begs him to, when she tells him he's obsessed, that she doesn't recognize him anymore and that he might as well be a ghost.

But that's not what he is, just what he knows these people, these _dolls_, to be. He bites down even harder, and he loses his wife altogether. But somehow, for some strange reason, he doesn't care all that much. This phantom, this thing hidden right in the shadows becomes his reality, and part of him believes that if he ever finds it, things might fall back into place again.

People are dying, he knows it, being wiped clean and imprinted with other personalities to become the pets of people placed higher than him. Maybe even his own superiors. There's a flame that starts burning, one that has never been there before, something new and exciting and yes, it's because of this that he's too blinded to see Mellie throwing herself at him, and why he takes risks he would never have taken before.

Their first meeting isn't all peaches and cream, but at least he finds her, confirms with his own two eyes that she's a real person, not just a weapon or an easily molded doll that does as she's told. Because if she did, she wouldn't be holding him at gunpoint, informing him that she's _not nobody_. She's Sarah, even though he knows she's not, but with those few words she comes closer to any other truth about herself without even realizing.

The next time they meet she's another person with another name, but it's her face he tries to hold on to. He shows her the tape. She takes several steps back from the television set, moving as if she's being electrified. He knows that she's remembering.

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She's

She's

At first she's not sure, and she's not sure that it's the right word, or whether her mind is too jumbled up to find the right sequence of letters. But she thinks she's _remembering_. Remembering. But where do these images come from? She knows that Dominic is the bad guy (not her this time), and that he wants her in the attic, wherever that is, but where does the feeling come from? Because that's all it is, a childlike feeling that something is not quite right.

There's another man she starts _remembering_ not long after, only he doesn't wander around the same complex as she does, this _prison without a sky_. He's tall, but he has one of the kindest smiles she knows. She thinks she should know his name, only he's invisible, and she's infantile. But she does know that he calls her Caroline.

_Caroline_.

The next time they meet (only she's not herself, and he is, himself, always) there's an echo that ripples through her body, a flame, a passion to know him better, to know who he is and where this word, this right arrangement of random letters comes from. Because it does seem that he knows, remembers, and is sure of himself.

_I am not nobody_.

But it's worthless to try and find the answers, this futile attempt to keep away the scribbling away of lies, of this façade they put on her, this wish of the rich and powerful for her to be a dress-up dolly, someone she's not. She gets wiped again.

_Hello Echo, how are you feeling?_

_I…_ there's a retaliating flame in her heart and a face, a man's, flashes vividly before her eyes. _Did I fall asleep?_

The more she's in that chair, the more she understands, how the contraption is a bad thing, something she should avoid but there's something in her head, a program, that runs on automatic when certain right combinations of words are spoken. She begins to understand the layers, layer upon layer upon layer. Translates into: doubt upon doubt upon doubt.

_I am less than the sum_ she says but no one really takes it seriously, because it's child talk, a child that stays in this stasis and is not supposed to grow up.

_I am parts of a whole_ but the only heads she turns are those of Victor and Sierra and they only ever smile at her, or at each other.

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It couldn't last forever, he hopes that they at least made themselves no illusions over that. It couldn't go on in secrecy, with no one noticing how she pulled on another mask, another tight-fitting personality time and time again. He invades the dollhouse, support at his side for the first time in two years, guns blazing. He's the hero of the day, even if most of the dolls, _the actives_, don't see it that way.

_Where will we go?_ but he doesn't care to answer the others; he's only interested in finding the one he came for.

_Caroline_. He sees her turn around and there's something in her brown innocent eyes, something even he manages to recognize. _Trust_, and knowledge of things she before never thought she'd be able to hold on to.

_Paul_. The word falls from her lips automatically, and there's no previously written code that tells her to do so. It's only her, her free will and the real feelings in her heart. There's something there, a sound, of skipping a beat, one she can't quite put in words.

_Echo, stay away from that man _the brunette tells her, with the accent that's unique to her alone. Her face is blank, but her eyes are inflamed with anger, and maybe, just maybe, some sort of defeat.

_The future echoes with his memory_ she smiles blankly, but her nose crinkles with a new sentiment, something that makes her curl her toes and want to jump up. She'll leave this place, and it will be nothing more than a bad dream.

She can't get it back though, who she used to be, it's forsaken her, hidden beneath layers and layers, and yes, more layers. But they are all her memories, because she's all those people. They're all there, simmering and blistering inside of her, and she can't deny them, because despite the wipes and residual phantom compositions, they make her who she is now.

_There is something missing_ she says and it enrages him for the slightest of moments. But that's how she wanted it, to not be imprinted with a random personality close to her own. She wanted to become her own person in a world that she didn't entirely understand. A child yet to grow. He's already told himself that he'll see her through this, taking her to places where she once was Caroline and showing her faces she's supposed to know but doesn't. The flame is still there, and now he knows that nothing will ever be the same again. But he doesn't need it to be, not when he's with her.

She puts a hand on his chest, and the other on her own, feeling both their hearts beat simultaneously, and suddenly, out of nowhere, she smiles, laughs, a big one accompanied by a loud HA and then the realization that something just surfaced. She frowns, and puts on a questioning look when she looks up at him. _What is this sound in my heart?_ (yours too, whenever you look at me, but I'm not sure how to tell you this)

And so he'll whisper to her quietly, lips to her ear and arms wrapping around her small frame, soft words flowing from his mouth: _there is something I stole_.

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It feels like

It feels like

It feels like I've never been in love before

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It feels like

It feels like

It feels like love

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**please read & review!**


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